Cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell division and growth within the body. In the United States, roughly a third of all women and half of all men will experience cancer in their lifetime. Polypeptides are involved in every aspect of the disease including cancer cell biology (carcinogenesis, cell cycle suppression, DNA repair and angiogenesis), treatment (immunotherapy, hormone manipulation, enzymatic inhibition), diagnosis and determination of cancer type (molecular markers for breast, prostate, colon and cervical cancer for example). With the host of undesired consequences brought about by standard treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy used today, genetic therapy for the manipulation of disease-related peptides provides a more targeted approach to disease diagnosis, treatment and management.
To this end, the inventors have shown that certain modified mRNA sequences have the potential as therapeutics with benefits beyond just evading, avoiding or diminishing the immune response. Such studies are detailed in published co-pending applications International Application PCT/US2011/046861 filed Aug. 5, 2011 and PCT/US2011/054636 filed Oct. 3, 2011, International Application number PCT/US2011/054617 filed Oct. 3, 2011, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The present invention addresses this need by providing nucleic acid based compounds or polynucleotide-encoding nucleic acid-based compounds (e.g., modified mRNA or mmRNA) which encode an oncology-related polypeptide of interest and which have structural and/or chemical features that avoid one or more of the problems in the art.